Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ENLIGHTENme (Innovative policies for improving citizens’ health and wellbeing addressing indoor and outdoor lighting) Reporting period: 2021-03-01 to 2022-08-31 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project A major, albeit underestimated, by-product of urbanization is the exponential increase of human exposure to artificial light. Outdoor illumination, artificial sky glow, domestic lighting, light-emitting screens, etc. entrain circadian clock. Despite scientific evidence on the pathogenic role of circadian rhythms disruption in predisposing to non-communicable diseases, affecting sleep, metabolism, immune function and many aspects of behavior and mood, EU cities are mostly focusing on improving lighting services’ efficiency, reducing costs and emissions, but failing to consider lighting impacts on health and wellbeing.ENLIGHTENme will collect and systematize existing data and good practices on urban lighting and will perform an accurate study on the correlations among health, wellbeing, lighting and socio-economic factors in 3 pilot cities -Amsterdam, Bologna and Tartu, where a target district will be selected due to its exposure to artificial light and to reflect social inequalities. Through the establishment of Lighting Urban Labs within the district, citizens and stakeholders will co-create innovative Lighting Urban Plans measures and define the implementation of a smart outdoor lighting system and indoor lighting changes in a pilot area within the district. There, a population-based study on elderly – addressed as a vulnerable group particularly prone to suffer circadian misalignment – will allow to assess lighting-dependent risks on mental and health conditions and surveys involving the overall district population and users will allow assess the impacts of urban lighting on quality of life and wellbeing.The results will allow to develop a dedicated Decision Support System and guidelines and recommendation on the impact of lighting on health and wellbeing, proposing innovative lighting policies, measures, technologies and interventions aiming at improving citizens’ health and wellbeing in cities. Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far The first reporting period was mainly dedicated to build and systematize the existing knowledge on artificial lighting effects on health and wellbeing. First, a common operational language was defined to support the PBs in exchanging knowledge across different disciplines. Moreover, existing knowledge on lighting effects on health and practices on indoor and outdoor lighting has been collected. At present, 117 practices and references have been identified and a selection of them will be mapped and classified in the ENLIGHTENme Atlas. Then, data on socio-economic, urban and lighting characteristics, health conditions were collected and systematized for the 3 pilot cities, resulting in 46 indicators, describing and mapping the vulnerability of the cities, represented through urban lighting and health maps. The general vulnerability index allowed to select a short list of more vulnerable districts in each city, whose characteristics where then deepened through the qualitative and population-based studies. Consequently, a vulnerable district was selected in each city according to local situations and opportunities such as lighting system condition, willingness form the local community to participate, percentage of elderly people living in the district. We started the implementation phase in the 3 ENLIGHTENme cities, and in particular here, the Urban Lighting Labs have been established by involving key local stakeholders and community members, with special regard to elderly people and care givers. Workshops have been held, where to raise awareness on the correlation among lighting and health and wellbeing and to co-design outdoor lighting solutions more respectful of people wellbeing. At the same time, a recruitment roadmap started to be developed, with the aim of recruiting in the same selected district 500 older adults that will be engaged in a population-based study to research the effects of good indoor and outdoor lighting exposition on health and wellbeing. In brief, the first period has been mainly dedicated to the “preparatory” work for building the conditions for developing the foreseen research activities, paying attention to ethics principles set at European and national levels. To this aim, the involved medical centers have detailed the protocol for conducting the population-based study and have submitted it to the approval of the respective Ethics committees. Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far) Although lighting is geographically ubiquitous and central to the way urban spaces (domestic and public) are used and experienced, it is generally treated as a technical specialism separated from wider planning or allocated to a narrow role. Urban policies and regulations about artificial lighting usually focus on the economic and environmental (in terms of reduced CO2 emissions) aspects of the interventions. ENLIGHTENme novelty lies in the capability to integrate health and wellbeing in urban lighting policies and in the decision-making process, based on evidence from the impact of electric lighting on older adults’ health, wellbeing and social life and thus allowing to develop innovative smart healthy lighting systems able to increase urban quality. Through the systematization of existing knowledge and good practices at global level, integrated by the evidences gathered through the pilot interventions in the three ENLIGHTENme cities and the capability to represent the correlation between characteristics of urban areas, light exposure, socio-economic characteristics, urban patterns and health and wellbeing distribution at local scale, ENLIGHTENme wants to build more robust evidence about the effects of urban lighting on health, improved elderly population physical and/or mental health in urban areas, thus reducing health inequalities. The establishment of the Urban lighting labs in the three cities fosters the involvement of local stakeholders and citizens in a participatory process together with lighting design experts, urban planners, sociologists and experts on health and mental wellbeing, addressing social practices and inequalities and lighting design in the same process. Related documents lighting lab.jpg
